Summary of Career
Erich Hartmann flew 1,404 combat missions during World War II, resulting in 825 engagements, and was never shot down.
He was never wounded and never bailed out due to damage inflicted by enemy pilots. His kill tally included some 200 various single-engined Soviet-built fighters, more than 80 US-built P-39s, 15 Il-2 ground attack aircraft, and 10 twin-engined medium bombers.
It is often said that he was more proud of the fact that he had never lost a wingman in combat than he was about his rate of kills; however, he did at least have one shot down. Major Günther Capito had joined the unit in the spring of 1943. Capito was a former bomber pilot who had retrained on fighters. After scoring his fifth victory, Capito asked to be Hartmann's wingman. Hartmann refused initially, believing Capito was insufficiently trained on Messerschmitts. On their first mission together, they were engaged by P-39 Airacobras:
I called to him to turn hard opposite, so I could sandwich the Red fighters, but in his standard-rate bomber turn he got hit. I saw the whole thing and ordered him to dive and bail out immediately. To my intense relief I saw him leave the aircraft and his parachute blossom. I was happy to get this Airacobra, but I was mad at myself for not harkening to my intuition not to fly with Günther Capito.
Hartmann destroyed both the Soviet fighters soon afterwards.
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